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21 January 2018

CRUMMY OLD WINE DEP'T: USA federal shutdown couldn't close the Atlantic Ocean, but they did close the restrooms

06 October 2013

Tea Party's toxic tantrum shuts down US federal government / screw the American people, we're doing this for principle!

Click photo to enlarge.Cape Cod
has been a wildly popular summer ocean resort forever. In season, rents
are huge; everyone wants to vacation in this gorgeous Atlantic region.
The pressure to develop Cape Cod commercially is huge and relentless.

But since the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, a huge swath of seashore was set aside as The Cape Cod National Seashore.
It's protected from development, and anyone can spend the day walking
the magnificent beach, seeing the wildlife (sea lions bask on rocks just
offshore, the beaches are sea turtle egg nests), swimming, picnicking.

In 1970, I had the pleasure of enjoying another great, huge National Seashore, Padre Island, a wild public treasure that stretches from Corpus Christi, Texas south to the Mexican border on the Gulf of Mexico.

As
the above photo shows, the National Seashores (and National Parks and
National Forests) have been closed since a bunch of Tea Party Republican
assholes, led by US Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, managed to shut down nearly every activity of the federal government.

They claim they've done it to force the repeal or de-funding of the Affordable Care Act -- its enemies call it Obamacare.

Which
they can't achieve because the U.S. Senate is controlled by Democrats.
The ACA is the Law of the Land, passed by both houses of Congress,
signed by the President, and the US Supreme Court upheld its
constitutionality when it was challenged by several "red states" -- states under Republican/Tea Party control.

So
the Tea Party/Republican assholes are throwing a hissy-fit tantrum and
holding their breath until they turn blue. The tantrum has taken the
form of forcing the federal government to cease most of its functions
and send its civilian employees home on unpaid furlough.

For
S.W.M.B.O.and me, our encounter with The Federal Government Shutdown was
a minor inconvenience. The seashore beach wasn't closed or the road
chained shut; but the shutdown left the National Seashore with no
employees who protect the National Seashore and its wilderness flora and
land and marine fauna. The employees who clean up after visitors --
well, the Cape Cod National Seashore is going to get dirtier and uglier
and more degraded the longer the shutdown lasts.

Fuck our public
national wilderness treasure. Obamacare -- the USA's first attempt to
put in some kind of national health care scheme to provide medical care
to all regardless of economic status -- must be stopped no matter what,
say Cruz and Rand Paul and all the Tea Party whack jobs, who seem to be
scaring the crap out of the useless Republican Speaker of the House of
Representatives, John Boehner.

Well, Boehner can be replaced by
more aggressive Tea Party whack jobs, and he doesn't want to lose the
prestigious Speakership. (Regardless of party, the Speaker of the House
is third in line of succession to the presidency.)

I could list
hundreds of other federal programs and workers who have been furloughed
-- ordered not to work -- for the last week.

The one that most concerns the fragile recovering economy is the Internal Revenue Service. The housing market -- whose collapse sunk the economy under George W. Bush
-- is recovering, but the first step to obtain a mortgage is to have
the IRS evaluate the mortgage applicant to see that the applicant has
paid all his/her federal taxes.

Now
no one answers the phone at the IRS, no mortgage applications can be
approved, no mortgages can be issued, no houses can be sold. This is the
most likely way the lingering shutdown will flip the recovering economy
back into the Bush Toilet of the last 7 years.

Agricultural inspectors.
The safety and purity of food which you take for granted every time you
grocery shop -- as the shutdown goes on, the food becomes less well
inspected, the food becomes less safe.Head Start -- also
since LBJ's presidency, a hugely successful pre-school education program
-- has been suspended. Screw poor kids, screw a successful program that
boosts their success in all their subsequent education.

WIC -- [Wikipedia:]

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
is a federal assistance program of the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)
of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for healthcare
and nutrition of low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and
infants and children under the age of five.

... has been suspended. Screw the health of infants and their access to milk and healthy food.

In case no one remembers, the Republican candidate Mitt Romney was soundly rejected by American voters in 2012, and Barack Obama was re-elected for his second 4-year term.

Mitt
believed most Americans are entitlement bums who just want free stuff
from the government. He said he likes to fire people.

Don't
get me started. But his whack elitist gazillionaire ideas, espoused by
his party, continue to strangle the recovering prosperity and safety of
the USA.

All this is pissing me off and making me sick. There's
no "principle" here, as the Tea Party whacks and Boehner claim. With
Obama in the White House, Democratic control of the U.S. Senate, and re
the Affordable Care Act, even a sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court, all the
whack Tea Party Republicans can do is poison and paralyze the federal
government and sicken and stall the economic recovery.

So, in
lieu of governing or legislating good things for the American people,
that's what they're doing. They're making America sick.

There's
one up side to this toxic tantrum. By the time the next presidential
election cycle begins, the American people will be so angry with the
Republicans and the whack Tea Party assholes that it's unlikely any
Republican candidate can defeat the Democratic nominee. In its current
makeup, the Republican party is incapable of re-capturing the White
House. It's about to vanish from the American political landscape.

1 comment:

PatFromCH
said...

In October 2011 yours truly had a hernia ops (left side, classic, no
internal organs were affected). I knew what was up, packed my bags, went
to hospital, showed them my medicaid card. No questions asked, filled
out ONE form. I was diagonsed and informed that an operation would take
place and 2 hours later I was put to sleep. 3 days later I was out of
hospital again. Cute nurses, good food and a doctor who spoke tacheles.
No questions asked. Because it was not work-related I had to pay a small
percentage of the operation costs, otherwise I would have gone free.
Since I was out for 2 weeks my employer was forced to pay 80 % of my
wages because I was on medical leave and it was impossible for them to
fire me in that time. I have fully recovered, there is only a small scar
I wear with pride. No worries, no problems, no hassle.

This is
mandatory Health Care Euro-Style. Of course it is not perfect and it is
not exactly cheap. But it works. Otherwise I could have hanged myself
then and there. No expensive medical costs falling back on you, no
sleazy lawyers lurking in the hallways of the hospital asking you if you
want to sue someone for damage so you can cover the costs, no effing
insurance telling me they are not going to pay for treatment that might
be considered “experimental”, no employer being able to fire you while
on leave or refusing to pay your wages.

Half of the world is
looking in sheer astonishment at the USA right now, we simply fail to
grok that something like this is possible while some ultra-idiot
hardcore conservative bible-thumpers are driving your country against
the wall – just because of something that I consider normal. Sometimes
it is just really difficult to understand these funny Americans....